10 WWE Stars Who Were Bullied Out Of The Company
4. Ivelisse Vélez
Ivelisse Vélez is currently a star with Lucha Underground, but she first came to national attention during the 2011 revival of Tough Enough. While competing on the show, she suffered a leg injury that forced her elimination, but she was signed to a developmental contract and sent to Florida Championship Wrestling, which would later become NXT.
Vélez only spent a year in development before being released, then moving on to the indies and LU. In a 2015 interview, though, Vélez stated that she believed that her release was due to the fact that she was one of the first developmental stars to report former trainer Bill DeMott for his bullying tactics.
DeMott, who resigned from WWE for good in March of 2015, had long been considered an awful presence in the developmental system. He reportedly used racist and homophobic slurs on trainees, promoted a culture of sexual harassment, and was physically abusive. Such rumors had followed DeMott for over a decade, but despite being fired in 2007, he was rehired to the same position in 2011. When he finally resigned, he continued to deny any wrongdoing.
Vélez, like other trainees, was subjected to this kind of harassment. When she voiced a complaint about it, though, it was only her own career that suffered.